Naomi Ragen is an American-born novelist, playwright and journalist who has lived in Jerusalem since 1971. Naomi has written for the Jerusalem Post and other publications in Israel and abroad, as well as to her mailing list, about Israel and Jewish issues.

Subscribe to Naomi's Blog

Enter your email address to subscribe to Naomi's blog.

Email Address

Naomi's tenth novel The Devil in Jerusalem has been chosen by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency as the number one Jewish book of the season.
The story - inspired by true events - is a chilling tale of the paths that so easily lead us astray, and the darkness within us all.
Click the book’s cover to learn more.

Naomi has published ten internationally best-selling novels, and is the author of a hit play (Women's Minyan) that has been performed more than 500 times in Israel's National Theatre (Habimah) as well as in the United States and Argentina.
An Orthodox woman, feminist and iconoclast, Naomi is a tireless advocate for women's rights in Israel, waging a relentless campaign against domestic abuse and bias in rabbinical courts, as well as a successful Supreme Court case against gender segregation on Israeli buses.
With her tenth novel, The Devil in Jerusalem, Naomi continues her ground-breaking exploration of women in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish world she began in 1989 with Jephte's Daughter, followed by Sotah and The Sacrifice of Tamar.
Naomi is a sought-after lecturer all over the world. If your group is interested in hosting Naomi, please click here.

May 2017 – The Polish translation of Devil in Jerusalem is published as Nic Nie Mów.

April 2017 – Naomi speaks about her books at the Ivan M. Stettenham Library at the Streicker Centre in New York City.

March 2017 – Naomi tours the Paris region to speak about her new book Les Soeurs Weiss, the French translation of The Sisters Weiss.

January 2017 – Naomi is interviewed by Valérie Abécasis on French Channel 24‘s Culture program. The interview (in French) begins at the 4:00 minute mark.

December 2016 – Les Soeurs Weiss, the French translation of The Sisters Weiss, is published.

7 October 2014 –
Naomi’s ninth novel, The Sisters Weiss, was published in paperback. It’s the story of two sisters from an ultra-Orthodox family in 1950s Brooklyn who take very different paths, and then find their lives unexpectedly intersecting again forty years later. To order the book from Amazon, click the book cover above.

December 2013 - Watch an interview (in French) with Naomi about her struggle against the haredi war on women in Israel.
Watch an interview (in French) with Naomi about Le Serment.
December 2013 - Naomi visited Île-de-France to promote her new book Le serment (the French translation of The Covenant).

15 March 2012 - Sotah was published in Italian as L'amora proibito. Read a
review (in Italian).March 2012 - Jephte's Daughter was published in an Italian paperback edition, as Una moglie a Gerusalemme.October 2011 - The Ghost of Hannah Mendes was published in French as Le Fantôme de Dona Gracia Mendes.
Read a
review (in French).October 2011 - The Tenth Song was published in paperback.
May 2011 - Four-time Tony nominee Tovah Feldshuh directed a staged reading of Women's Minyan at New York's Westside Theater. The reading was produced by One Circle Productions, in partnership with Safe Horizon.

November 2013 - The Covenant was published in French as Le serment.
November 2013 - Watch an interview with Naomi by Sharon Mor of Shaulina Productions about Naomi's new book The Sisters Weiss in Hebrew or in English.
6 November 2013 - Israel's Supreme Court reversed the District Court's decision against Naomi in the Sarah Shapiro case and ordered Shapiro to return the money she was awarded. Naomi agreed that the money be donated to charity.
October-November 2013 - Naomi toured the US, visiting twelve US cities and speaking about her new book, The Sisters Weiss.
October 2013 - Naomi's ninth novel, The Sisters Weiss, was published. Read an article about it in the San Diego Jewish World.
August 2013 - Chains Around the Grass was published in an Amazon Kindle edition. July 2013 - An interview with Naomi about her trips to Spain to research her best-selling The Ghost of Hannah Mendes was featured in Jewish Travel.
December 2012 - Naomi's play Women's Minyan was performed by the West Boca Theatre Company at the Levis JCC in Boca Raton, Florida.
November 2012 - Naomi visited Île-de-France speaking about her books.
5 November 2012 - Naomi spoke at the Cockfosters and North Southgate Synagogue in London, England.

Hidden Saints

by Naomi Ragen on September 24th, 1999

When people buttonhole me in the street, write me letters and e-mail asking me to “write something nice” about the ultra-Orthodox world, I usually tell them that I find it curious they aren’t instead banging down my door asking me how they can help alleviate the suffering I describe. Why is it that all they can think about is lobbying for “feel good” stories to assuage their consciences? Nevertheless, I see no reason why out of spite I shouldn’t write about some of the wonderful ultra-Orthodox Jews that have crossed my path.

Just remember, lobbyists. This column is definitely not for you.You don’t need me to pat you on the back. You do very well with that all by yourself.

There is a tradition among religious Jews which says that G-d keeps the world going for the sake of thirty-six hidden saints who make it all worthwhile.

I’d like to tell you about four of them.

The first two are Rabbi Kalman Samuels and his wife Malky. Twenty years ago, when the Samuels were ultra-Orthodox immigrants from the United States, they took their beautiful, healthy three month all baby, Yossi, to get a routine DPT shot at the local Well Baby Clinic. After he received the shot, his temperature shot up. Then he began having seizures. Yossi had received one of the deadly toxic DPT vaccines tragically imported into Israel in the 1970’s, causing a wave of infant deaths.

Yossi survived. But his tiny body was ravaged by it. He was left blind, deaf, and crippled. Being devout Jews, the Kalmans never cursed their fate or G-d. On the contrary. They drew from their faith the enormous spiritual strength they needed to care for Yossi, to whom their devotion was boundless. But having 5 other children, they came to the point of total exhaustion. Isn’t there a place, they wondered, which will take care of special needs children like Yossi a few hours a week, giving the parents some time off? They looked around. There wasn’t.

And so they started one in their own home, bringing in mentally and physically disabled children from around the city. They called their program Shalva, meaning respite. When the number of children grew, they asked the City of Jerusalem to give them a building. A clerk offered them a dark bomb shelter. “What does it matter?” he said cynically.“These children won’t know the difference.” Kalman and Malky disagreed. These children, they insisted, deserve the most beautiful facility in the world.

After ten years of superhuman efforts, Rabbi Kalman Samuels raised the funding necessary to build it. It is called “Beit Nachshon, ” after the Israeli soldier Nachshon Wachsman murdered by Hamas terrorists. Nachshon’s beloved little brother Rafael, who has Downe’s Syndrome, is a regular at Shalva.

Come to Har Nof to visit Shalva one day, if you can. You’ll see ninety physically and mentally challenged children resting in beautiful painted bedrooms, playing in a private Disneyland in a three story villa with magnificent views. And despite their terrible handicaps, you’ll hear the laughter of happy kids, cared for with endless love all because two deeply religious parents decided that to love G-d, was to love every soul he created, no matter the state of the body which housed it.

Every year, the Samuels struggle to pay their enormous ongoing expenses. They have to. These children have no place else to go.

Candidate number three is Rabbi Noah Corman, a haredi advocate in the Rabbinical Court. Representing an abused haredi woman, he was shocked to find his client had no place to live, and was bunking down in the lobby of the Central Hotel in Jerusalem. Unable to go home, she found that the usual women’s shelters had no facilities for her special religious needs. So, Rabbi Corman raised the funds to open just such a shelter. He called it: Bat Melech.

Although he can house very few women, and the demand is enormous, he has ushered a good number of haredi women and their small children past the dangers, providing lawyers, social workers, and job training to help them start new lives.

Finally, there is a haredi rabbi who doesn’t want his name mentioned, the founder of two homes for haredi teenagers fleeing abusive homes. My “little lost girl” found a haven under his benevolent, fatherly wing. Recently, the same rabbi helped convict an abusive father living near him in Geula, when all the other neighbors listened to the children’s screams and did nothing. Rabbi H. reported him to the police, testified in court, and found himself physically attacked by the man. Now the man is behind bars, his children safe. And Rabbi H., whose wounds are healing, is busy expanding his children’s shelters, continuing his saintly work.

As singer Tom Lehrer once said about the table of elements: “ And these are all of them of whom the news has come to Harvard. There may be many others, but they haven’t been discovered.” Whenever I come across the other thirty-two, I’ll be happy to let you know.

In response to numerous inquiries from Jerusalem Post readers wishing to contact or contribute to organizations described in this article, the following are their addresses and bank account numbers: